10 Weeks of Vegetable Gardening: Week 1

Each Friday I will be posting a weekly guide for prepping your home vegetable garden. In Raleigh, the average last killing frost date is April 11 (give or take a week), so my first weekend for planting outdoors will be April 9. Check out this frost map to determine yours.

There are now ten weeks before our big outdoor planting weekend. If you buy all your vegetable plants for your home garden, this may not be very significant, but if you enjoy starting your plants from seed, this is a reason to scurry into action. Take time to dream of what your garden (and your dinner plate) will look like this year.

As you plan and select your seeds, ask yourself the following questions: 1) Will I eat it? 2) Does it grow well in my yard? 3) How can I simplify? I have a tendency of overcomplicating my garden, attempting to grow things I have never had luck in growing, and incorporating plants that I don't eat just because I think they would be fun to grow. Simplify by talking to your friends to find out what they grow well and agree to swap produce later. You can also simplify by limiting yourself to trying just a couple of new varieties each year and sticking to the tried and true.

Tasks:

• Pull out your old seed packets and consider disposing of anything older than three years.
• Make a list of what you want to plant and which seeds you need to purchase and hit up the local home garden centers or a friend who is willing to share.
• Gather supplies for making your indoor greenhouses.
• Plant your first batch of seed in your green houses. Set them in a sunny window or under a plant light.

Materials:

• Small containers to plant your seeds in. Consider used paper cups, egg cartons, and empty trays from last year’s plant purchases. Domed seed-starting kits available at most home garden centers. There are also biodegradable cell trays and pots at most stores. For home-made greenhouses, you can use a ziplock bag to hold in the moisture and heat and let in sunlight.
• Planting media. If you have the kits, the peat pellets work great in these. Seed starting mix is also great.
• Plastic labels and permanent marker. Be sure to label everything you plant. Chances are you won’t remember what you have, which is important because each type of plant has its own set of requirements.
• Seeds. The following can be starting 10 weeks before the last frost date: thyme, mint, chives, oregano, artichokes, onions, celery, leeks, and peppers.

Seed Cataloging for the Home Garden

Every mid-winter I find myself in a Lowes or Logan's perusing the seed displays. I cannot help myself. Today, the boys and I spent nearly an hour in Lowes playing on the mowers, looking at seeds, and talking to the staff. Actually, the staff was talking to my boys. They are cuties, what can I say. I left with a seed-starting kit, six packets of seeds and some starter refills.

This evening, I spread my spoils on the floor and went into the dining room to fish out my other seeds from the bottom drawer of my dresser-turned-sideboard. Like a good engineering student, I opened up Excel and began cataloging my seeds. Want to take a guess at how many seed types were on my list? Fifty-two. Granted, some of those were the same seed saved for multiple years, but still it is a ridiculously long list for a home-gardener who wants to keep it simple.

However, I can't help myself. When my friend brought me a bucket of tomatoes from her garden last summer, I think I cut just as many tomatoes open to save the seeds as I cut open for eating. She had varieties I had not yet tried, and I liked them! What was I supposed to do? I also have some that were given to me free from Logan's as they were dumping old seed stock for new seed stock.

Here's my list. The "For" column is the year for which they were packaged. "P" is for purchased, and "S" is for saved. So if a seed is listed as 2011 S, it means I saved the seed in 2010 to be planted in 2011.



Local friends and family, if you'd like to do a little seed swapping or stealing, I have far more than I could ever plant. Also, I highly recommend cataloging your seeds. It helped me throw out older stock and remember what I do have so I don't leave anything important out while planting this year.

Papa Spud's - First Delivery and Impressions

My good friend Kiona over at Lucky Accessories recently recommended Papa Spud’s of Cary, NC to me, knowing that I was trying to eat more fruits and vegetables and do so in an ecologically responsible way. According to their website, “Papa Spud's is an online farmer's market, working to connect Triangle residents with local and/or sustainable farmers and their products.”

While I love going to the NC Farmer’s Market with the boys, there was something very appealing about having a box of food delivered right to my doorstep. I signed up two weekends ago, and the following Friday hopped online to review their automatic order and make changes. Confession – I am not really into greens, so I replaced the four different greens and other items they had chosen with pears, sweet potatoes, bread, chicken and red onions. This afternoon, I opened my front door and found this!



The pears, potatoes and onions look great! We will dig into the bread this evening as part of our dinner. At $6.99/lb, the frozen chicken was a bit pricey, especially when I can get a fresh whole organic roaster at Trader Joe’s for $2.69/lb (although not local). I saw that Papa Spud’s will have flank steak and local fish soon, but this past week, selections were limited mainly to chicken and cheaper cuts of beef. Next week I may try to branch out a little from my meats and starches and select some veggies that normally don’t show up on our weekly rotation.

If you are worried about what will become of all that packaging, don't! Customers are asked to save all packaging and leave it on the doorstep before the following week's delivery so that if can be reused. They had reused an old plastic water bottle by filling it with water and freezing it to keep the box cool.

Overall, I am very pleased so far. The website is easy to use and there are plenty of options to choose from. They deliver to Raleigh, Cary, Durham, and Apex/Holly Springs. Here is their delivery map. I can't wait until next Wednesday!

Two Nerds Trying to Look Suave

Me: Ha ha ha! You look like a 6'5" turd!
Joe: (standing awkwardly in his brown cords and brown leather jacket) Thanks.
Me: Sorry, I love you! You don't have to change.
Joe: (taking off the jacket and grabbing his green fleece). What? You called me a turd. I have to change.
Me: Sorry!
Joe: (Striking a pose). Green and brown. Now I am a bacterial infection.

Seed Swap... Who's In?

Just a quick shout-out to my Raleigh (and Triangle) friends who like to dabble in the garden:

Is anyone interested in swapping seeds on Saturday, February 5? I'm happy to host something if there are several of us interested. I always have more seeds than I could possibly plant and can't afford to buy packets of many new varieties. If you are interested, drop a comment and email address (it stays private) and I will be in touch with an Evite. Spring planting is just around the corner!

Third Birthday Highlights

Third birthday highlights:

• For several days before his birthday, Daniel would say, "Birthday is coming up?" and nod his head because he knew it was.
• The morning of, Daniel asked if we could get his party out of the refrigerator. We think he might have been referring to the orange fruit punch we picked up the night before.
• Daniel asked me to sing "Happy Birthday" to him several times that morning.
• I flipped out a little when the cupcakes kept sliding off the cake.
• Daniel wanted his cake to be orange.
• When people wished him a "happy birthday", he would say it back to them.
• Daniel flung the front door open screaming "Friends!!!" as people pulled into the driveway.
• Three year old kids are really funny together, and the conversations are awesome.
• Building birdhouses was great, but as expected the parents were left finishing the projects.
• The birdhouses were for ages 8 and up, but even the 20 and ups were struggling!
• There was a mad rush for all the cars (Handy Manny, Automoblox and McQueen) as the presents were opened.
• Daniel was great at sharing his initially because he had not yet processed that they were his to not share.
• Daniel ran into the kitchen repeatedly to steal bites of his cake after the party was over.
• When Joe was setting up Daniel's tent from Bubba and Susu, he lunged into it before it was fully up.
• Daniel took a nap and slept overnight in his tent, and I doubt we will ever be able to get him back in his toddler bed, especially since we moved the mattress into the tent :)

Thoughts on Community and the Body of Christ

You stand behind your concrete wall

communing with yourself and God,

and as you gaze on the world through tiny holes,

you wonder why it is so hard to love.

I came to visit it you, to try to know you,

but there was no door to knock on,

no windows to look through,

and all I could see was your eyes

looking at me through the tiny holes.

You, hidden in your concrete cask

with no entrance and no exit,

and I standing there out in the open—

it wasn’t very comfortable,

so I gave up and turned away

to build a concrete wall of my own. 

I wrote this poem many years ago about a friend whom I'd tried to get to know on a deeper level but met me with cool resistance and an independence that left no room for companionship. Their seclusion incited seclusion in me. Last night as a group of us gathered in the Simons' living room to grapple with the spiritual and practical applications of being the body of Christ, I was faced with the realization that while I'd judged this friend in the past for a standoffish nature, I too had likely exuded this to others over the course of my relatively short adult life, and although I'd made leaps and bounds in living a more open life, I still held up many walls. 

While I may come across as exceedingly open and transparent, there is an inner wall that holds people at bay, that prevents me from accepting love and trusting that love. I think this is common in a lot of us and is a device we use as protection in the case we have to run. We don't fully give over our hearts for the sake that they just might get broken.

Anyone who's been to summer camps or youth group has likely hear the somewhat cliche analogy of taking a stick from the fire and seeing how it burns out quickly apart from the whole. However, if the body of Christ truly operates as a body, then to be apart from it implies that you are not part of the body of Christ. There is no remote hand or eye of the body. There is no option to run.

I read recently that one of the signs of being a follower of Jesus is that you love his people. If I'm honest, I'll tell you that I don't trust the body. There are parts of the body that offend me. There are parts that have hurt me. There are part that I have offended and hurt. There has even been a time where I've sought to separate myself from the body and remain emotionally detached to be my own island. 

My friend Natalie said it best last night that the followers of Jesus aren't just a family or a team. They are far closer, and the nature of the relationship demands unity. We are all equal because we all comprise the physical representation of Jesus to this world as one. It is no wonder that as I have allowed resentment to pull me apart from the body I've felt physical pain in my gut, a restless mind, and unquenchable loneliness, and my actions have influenced others. 

I don't claim to know how to happily live as the body of Christ without all the tension and conflicts that arise so often, but I do know that at the core of it is being with people - not just being in the same room, but being present, being vulnerable, being honest, being willing to allow God's blessings to be poured through your life and to accept His blessings as they pour through their lives. At the core of it is celebrating God's creativity in his creation and calling on each of each other's lives and walking along side each other as we live that out. At the core of it is speaking truth, the words of Jesus into each others' lives and to be able to trust that they love you above themselves. At the core of it is acting as the body of Christ to the world. Jesus loved, taught, fed, healed, offered mercy, comforted, held, touched, listened, and reconciled the world around him.

It seems that with every year Joe and I learn about living in community by being in it, we see a bigger picture of the person of Jesus and his vision for the world. Sure, the deeper we get in life with people the more often we feel the sting of hurt feelings and haphazard words, but the quicker we find heeling and reconciliation. The more we see that we were created to be a part of this, we find our identities not only as individuals whom God loves but as a people whom God loves.

New Workplace Demands

The Moms of Extremely Loud Toddlers Union Sets New Workplace Demands

RALEIGH, N.C. Union representative Paige Puckett (30) claims that while the home workplace has many advantages such as pajama day (M-F), beer before 5pm and the shameless scratching of itchy places without fear of public scrutiny, that the strain on her ears has become too much, even for her.

"I find that I spend a good 27% of my day trying to lower the volume of the clients and then 11% of my day recovering from the failed attempts. We all know that 62% productivity leaves a lot to be desired."

Puckett set forth the following demands:

"Soft ear plugs with a decibel rating of at least 32. I just burned through my carton of 100 and am now stuck with some old stiff ones. Soft is crucial. I don't care so much about the color - at least not like I did back during my reckless contemporary Christian concert days of the 90s."

She also has demanded coinciding nap times for her two children, Daniel (3) and Matthew (7 months). "And during this nap, I turn off the tv and make sure I can either nap or bathe." She says that home cleanliness is important but not as important as maintaining a shred of sanity for her husband when he gets home.

In her case, Puckett claims the customer is not always right. "I know it's important to work with the clients, to come to reasonable compromises, but these noise issues I won't budge on. Today, I was telling Daniel not to yell, so he closed his mouth and proceeded to hum-screem at ear-bleeding levels. This is not acceptable."

Unseasonable Weather

The boys and I really enjoyed getting outside today in the 60 degree air without jackets. I even let my legs take a peek at the sunshine. Shhh, don't tell.

The Slaughter of Silence and Sleep

After tears of confusion, much drama, pain, clinging, drooling, gnawing, and the slaughter of silence and sleep, Matthew has pushed two teeth through. There is no picture because there isn't much to see yet, just two little white lines on his bottom gum line. I suppose I should be mourning the impending loss of his sweet gummy smile, but babies with just their two bottom teeth are quite adorable too.

Last week, Matthew and I visited my family in Chattanooga (technically it is Ooltewah, but usually no one has heard of it). The youngest of mom's two older brothers passed away, and I wanted to keep her company as we all awaited plans for the funeral service to be made as the heavens blanketed us with eight inches of snow. Matthew did his duty of bringing smiles and laughter as he started crawling, batting his eyelashes and making kissy sounds for the first time. It was a sweet time with my parents and extended family as we reconnected, shared fond memories, and promised to keep in touch more often.

If you have met my older son Daniel, you know that my ears were likely desperate for short respite from the constant barrage of noise whether it be yelling, laughing, whining or toys with far too many batteries that are overdue for taking a one-way trip to the local Goodwill. Being in Tennessee, I could suddenly hear Matthew's voice again. I heard birds. I heard my own thoughts. I truly missed Daniel, but the silence of the snow and Matthew's quiet babbling cooled my spirit.

At the end of the week when I met up with Daniel and my mother-in-law at McDonalds to take him back home, Daniel yelled above the bustle of the registers and voices and complained about the buckles on the highchair as he rolled himself spastically to and from the table with hip thrusts. I nearly had a panic attack as I shoved down the chicken nuggets and attempted to regain my ability to find some quiet sanity amidst the loud chatter endlessly pounding on my ear drums. I don't think I was emotionally prepared to go from handling a baby with the help of three other adults in the house to driving another four hours with just my two boys. As Daniel threw a temper tantrum in the back seat of the car, screaming over a dropped pair of sunglasses, kicking my seats, and proceeding to vomit on his blanket and shirt because he was so worked up, I took deep breaths and prayed that God would help me stay calm and make it back home in one piece.

Now that we are back at home and I am running on very little sleep due to the teething, Daniel and I are working diligently on his inside voice. Right now he is whispering to me about his two helicopters, talking about how one lands on the road and the other on the water. "Talk louder please?" "No we need to be quiet inside. Matthew is sleeping." "Talk in outside voices? No. Talk in inside voices a little louder?" "Okay, just a little louder." "What is this?" "Those are missiles. It is a fighter helicopter. The other one is a rescue helicopter."

No one told me that motherhood would be so loud. I'd heard of the sleepless bit, but I had no idea how much I would grow to value the little bits of silence that come my way. All the while, I absolutely love the sounds of my boys. I love the sweet things Daniel tells me, "I like your shoes Mommy. Are you a princess?", and I love the little snorts Matthew lets out as he explores the world one corner at a time. Right now, my son wants to talk to me and tell me all that he thinks and is learning. Right now, my baby wants to be held. This is all so fleeting, nearly as fleeting as the silence and sleep that have become so rare.

I've been using my brain

I've been using my brain and it feels good. This week I pulled out the old dissertation chapters to brush up on my rock cross vane research and start working on some drafts for publication. Aside from being dismayed by the small grammatical errors littered throughout, I was energized to read terms and processes I'd long shelved since having Daniel. I'm getting the itch too. Research was so much fun, so challenging. It won't be long before the boys are both mobile and both in preschool. Maybe then I'll start sniffing out some grant money or a project to join in on.

Infrequent Visitor

I have only seen this bird one other time, and that was when the world was covered in snow. I think it is an American Goldfinch (earlier I thought Pine Warbler), but I could be wrong. The diversity seen at the feeder has slowed down since the snow storm, and there is one squirrel who thinks he is getting pretty wise.

A Seat at the Table

This morning, our good friend Thom preached on being the adopted and sons and daughters of God. The part of his talk that really grabbed me was his discussion on how we write ourselves off as undeserving, unwanted or less than at His table.

Several weeks back, I was dining at Magiano's with a group of women to celebrate my friend's birthday. There were sixteen of us laughing and talking as if we were the oldest of friends, and amazingly enough we managed to all agree on two appetizers, salads and main courses to share family style. Six months prior, I would have felt completely inferior and too socially inadequate to be out with this crowd. Many of these ladies are the "pretty girls" I have previously mentioned here and here, and while I thought they had written me off, the truth is, I had written myself off.

I've assumed that because I know the lyrics to DC Talk's "I don't want it" by heart, because I rarely wear makeup, because water and an occasional dab of dial soap is my facial cleanser of choice, because I walk and look like an oaf when I wear heels, because I am really terrible at small talk unless I have a glass of wine - but then start being rather lewd with two glasses of wine, because I am a VERY ugly crier and probably an ugly laugher as well, because I sometimes let a little gas slip, because I eat butter straight from the fridge, because most summer days I'm bent over in the dirt while simultaneously sharing a half-moon with the neighborhood, that I would never fit in except therein with people who shared my penchant for old-lady hobbies and kids' movies.

Sadly, this attitude of mine has either prevented or delayed the start of many friendships in my life. As I sat at the table, happily medicated for postpartum depression, I looked around at the smiling faces and felt okay. Some of these friends I had known for years, and ironically the friend I connected with the most in conversation that night was an absolutely gorgeous and big-hearted girl I'd only recently started a friendship with. If any of these girls had ever judged me, I doubt it was half as harshly as I had judged myself or them, sadly. Whether it was a lifetime of telling myself lies or whether it was the societal pressures from as early as childhood, I'd placed myself and others in categories and used those to judge, be judged and dictate the course of my life.

Going back to Thom's talk, I see that in the realm of God's Kingdom, it is not much different. I/we get it into our heads that children of God are suppose to act and talk a certain way, live in certain neighborhoods, go to certain schools, drink certain brands of coffee, and we forget that His table is an open potluck where we celebrate His amazing creativity by bringing back to the table the gifts he has bestowed to us. Instead of coming together and celebrating our adoption into His family, there is a whole group of us setting up tv trays in the adjacent room because we feel disconnected.

As God's children, what can we do about this? Talk. It seems simple, but I think often the most disconnected people are where they are because no one started a conversation with them. I had a friend recently express her frustration that it was so difficult to have a real conversation about life and doubts. It is as if we fear entertaining discussion about struggles might somehow chisel away at the shred of faith we are holding onto. As I've gotten to know those women at the dinner more through conversation, I've found they aren't that much different than me. We have common struggles and fears; one girl can even quote the entirety of "The Sandlot", my favorite movie of all time. As brothers and sisters, I think we'd find that we aren't as isolated in our thoughts as we believe.

It's wild that it takes something as crazy as PPD and the ensuing treatment to help me work through a lifetime of lies and insecurities. So here's my formal apology to all those I  have written off, including myself - I'm so sorry... let's be friends!

Starting from Scratch

It's a new year and I'm looking at an empty back yard. The latest issue of Organic Gardening came in the mail and even if I wanted to start planning the spring gardens, I'm completely overwhelmed by the clean slate. Do we go with raised beds or in-ground gardens? Fence? Square or organic boundaries? At the back of the lot or next to the house? Of my 4 raised boxes, only one remains intact. The fire ants shredded the others, so I'm in no way committed to following the same trend of the past three years at this house. In the back of our minds we have lofty goals for a gorgeous yard. Joe's includes symmetry, patios, clear boundaries, a water feature, while mine includes sprawling gardens with quiet nooks for sitting back to sip on a cool beverage while swatting mosquitoes and dripping up the sweat running down the front of my shirt. But this is our view.

I nearly hyperventilate just looking at it. I suppose I ought to view it with the eager eyes that an artist would view a blank canvas, but I look at it and see about 73 decision for Joe and I to debate over.

Sometimes my life feels a little bit like my back yard this January - decisions to be made, long range dreams, and an overwhelmingly raw landscape to work with. One of my greatest fears to to be given potential to do great things but fart away my time on the living room sofa. And I don't just mean in regards to gardening or my other somewhat overly consumptive hobbies. The last time I felt this way was when I was beginning research towards my masters degree, which later became a doctoral degree because I bit off more than I could chew in two years. It took me nearly two years to get it going because I was so terrified of starting out on a path that I might later regret. I didn't want to commit time and energy into an endeavor that would later be abandoned. It was a case of stage fright.

But you know what? I did jump in, and perhaps starting at a clean slate isn't necessarily starting from scratch. You never fully do start from scratch because in each new attempt you bring new knowledge, experiences and wisdom to the table. So, I raise a glass to New Year's Stage Fright as the curtain opens for the second act.